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my thoughts as i am dying 89
I’m dying now
but lo, It really hurts.
I stand and my heart stops.
I seem to levitate in reverie,
twice removed from death
but lo, I’m dying now.
It really hurts.
Not body pain
but psychic pain
The pain of saying goodbye.
Of knowing this joyous feeling,
these memories end
with the flick of a light switch
My friend says,
"do not go gentle into that good night "
I fume I rage.
It really hurts,
“old age shall burn and rave at close of day."
All my memories will be no more than stardust.
I leave all the gifts
I have been bequeathed:
born fee,
in a land free of war,
free of catastrophic natural disasters:
of earthquakes fire, flood, and pestilence.
memories of family
Lost in reverie .
How blessed we have been.
"rage, rage, against the dying of the light"
( Thomas)
I hurt, I rage, I love ,
all these memories are mine
and they will vaporize--
one page of memories,
my history,
will be torn from the tree of life .
yet it is only these memories that buoy me now, against the hurt.
what a gift it is to teach
to raise a family
to travel the world
to leap joyously
into any new adventure.
I'll miss all that ...
it just ends,
and the book is closed,
that hurts.
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Thank you for posting this lovely poem. My father died 2 and 1/2 weeks ago. He was 88 years old. He had a fighting Spirit to the end. I got to spend the last night with him and I have to say it was both sad and joyous at the same time. Sad because I know that I'll never see him again while I'm alive but joyous because of how special it was to be there to support him while he was going through this. Thank you for your beautiful words
Dennis
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15 ReactionsThank you for sharing this. I am 53 and my father 81 and mom 76. I think about how they are feeling about exactly this all the time and the grief I will feel when it's their turn. I also feel so afraid of this moment for myself. Time is fleeting and goes so fast. We can't take any of it for granted. May God bless and keep you.
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13 ReactionsBeautiful poem.
Thank you for sharing your very personal feelings with us.
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7 ReactionsBeautiful! Please Let us all remember, death on the plane of Earth is not the end. Just think of the universes out there we can experience, after our experience here has transformed.
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7 ReactionsWe all are following You
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6 ReactionsMaybe
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2 ReactionsHello My beloved, dying brings so much peace knowing. We will be resurrected from the dead, without all the evil in this world today. Jesus is the way the truth and the life. With him we are already dead.
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5 ReactionsAnd even before Thomas (a favorite of mine), there was Momento Mori. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I'm grateful you're spending some of the time left to you to teach the rest of us,
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6 ReactionsThank you for this inspirational moment. I sincerely loved it!
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1 ReactionPoetic brilliance. Thank you for expressing what I feel, but cannot express.
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